A New Kind of Woman on “Game of Thrones”?

“Game of Thrones” is the plottiest show on television—how else can the writers compress the thousands of pages of thickly wooded story by George R. R. Martin into hour-long feasts of carnality and bloodshed? The season openers are the most dense, burdened with reintroducing us to the entire cast of characters and setting the table for the battles to come. These packed curtain-raisers, like last night’s “Two Swords,” are rewarding for those who have read the books (bringing the thrill of seeing long-awaited characters, such as Styr and Oberyn Martell, finally cast and onscreen) and somewhat maddening for those who have not, requiring multiple viewings and an open Wikipedia page.

Yet there have always been competing ways to watch “Game of Thrones”: either as someone who’s fully immersed in the Martin canon or as a Westeros rookie who knows the world only through television (that’s me). The episodes that jump rapidly between lands and perspectives seem designed to validate one type of viewer and to pleasantly scramble the other. Episodes that crescendo into a dramatic event, like Blackwater or the Red Wedding, are the uniting force between the two viewer tribes, climaxes that both can experience. But those stories only hit the heart like one of Ygritte’s arrows if they are the result of careful, elegant world-building—which is exactly what we got in the première.

Even within the more reserved “Game of Thrones” episodes—if you can call an episode that includes a gory wrist-stabbing, the disowning of a son, hundreds of crucified slave girls, and a bisexual orgy “reserved”—the showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss (who directed the episode) infuse an overarching theme into the proceedings. I have often heard that it is best to experience “Game of Thrones” like a tone poem or a medieval tapestry, especially if you don’t know what’s coming—to bathe in the dark, gloaming atmosphere of the show without worrying too much about each new face or the small bits of dialogue that go by too fast. And yet it might be more accurate to think of each installment as a fugue, with an opening motif that recurs throughout, imitated and reworked along the way.

The first shot of last night’s episode, of Tywin Lannister callously melting down Ned Stark’s Valyrian blade and splitting it into two new weapons for his own house, is echoed in the episode’s final scene, when Arya Stark, one of the last members of her family left alive to fight for its name, reclaims her own sword, Needle. At the start of Season 4, the Lannisters are the triumphant lords of Westeros, and they are in solid possession of the Iron Throne. Believing that the Lannisters have won the war against upstarts like Stannis Baratheon and Robb Stark, Tywin watches the instruments of his former antagonist turn to liquid with the look of a man who has comfortably vanquished his enemies.

The Lannisters now have all they need to rule: a king in the family who is about to wed a Tyrell to form a superpower, Ned Stark’s daughter married into the clan and diffused as a threat, and, now, two solid rods of ancient metal that can cut through bone. But, as soon as new swords are forged, they start to rust. The foundation underneath the Lannister dynasty is crumbling; Tywin cannot see it through the haze of burning dire-wolf fur, but his demise is written into the very hubris of trying to mold something as hard as steel into his family’s future. The first sword goes to a man without a hand to use it properly (and who doesn’t want to use it to defend the family legacy back at Casterly Rock), a sign of the precarious position of the ruling class.

While Tywin basks in his false sense of security, the rest of the episode offers up all of the nefarious chess pieces that will shortly march on the king: Oberyn Martell, with his hot temper and deep hatred of Lannister dominance; Daenerys, with her calf-slaying dragons and unsullied thousands; Sansa’s unpredictable and self-abnegating despair; Jaime and Cersei’s sexual rift and loss of faith in family ties; Margaery’s sneering ambition and distaste for her future husband (who would have her wear a string of dead sparrows around her neck at her nuptials); the Wildings’ impending Wall attack, fuelled by the fury of a woman scorned; and, most important, little Arya with her little sword, whose determination for vengeance may be stronger than any steel that her father wielded.

The poster for Season 4 proclaims that “all men must die,” and I couldn’t help thinking of that phrase as Arya skewered Polliver through the jaw, a delighted smirk on her face as she avenged Lommy with the exact words that were used during her friend’s killing. While she is currently under the protection of a man—and as much as I enjoy the bantering road-trip energy between Arya and the Hound—her reunion with Needle seems to mark a turning point in the series, one in which a female character is reclaiming a specific kind of power that may prove to be more dangerous than any other force in Westeros.

The world of “Game of Thrones” is now populated by two kinds of women: those who are actualized to make their own destinies, like Ygritte, Daenerys, Melisandre, Arya, and those who still rely on their male counterparts to dictate their happiness (with characters like Brienne caught somewhere in the middle). While the women deprived of power choose to self-medicate—Cersei drinks herself into a stupor in the castle, Sansa starves, Shae seduces, and Margaery touches diamonds—Arya’s drug of choice is grisly revenge. As she rides off into the sunset on a white horse, she looks less like a princess on a pony and more like a knight coming to her own rescue.